Miss Julia Renews Her Vows (22 page)

I was momentarily confused. “You knew he’d be here? I thought there’d be a self-defense instructor.”

Emma Sue frowned at me. “Where’d you get that idea? Larry asked Mildred to have him. He’s hoping that when some of the wives get to know him, they’ll get their husbands to go with them to the enrichment sessions. Hardly anybody showed up on Monday, you know.”

“Oh for goodness’ sakes,” I said, shuffling my feet as people moved past us. “I’m not feeling well. I’ve got to go.”

“Oh, sit down, Julia,” Emma Sue said. “I need you to help me. If we’re going to get out of being enriched, we have to get the goods on him.”

She gave me a little shove and I moved over to two empty chairs. Sitting down, because she wouldn’t give me a way out, I was relieved to find that I was behind Harriet Malone, who was about as wide as she was tall, and she was tall. I couldn’t see Dr. Fowler at all. Even better, he couldn’t see me.

“Now, Julia,” Emma Sue whispered as she handed me a pen, “take good notes and get down everything he says. I hope it’ll run Larry up a wall.”

Intrigued by this time at the thought of being of one mind with Emma Sue Ledbetter—it was so unusual, you know—I settled down in the safety of Harriet’s broad back to await Dr. Fowler’s self-incrimination.

A few stragglers were still coming through the foyer, and there was a lot of talking and greeting of friends as those in the drawing room took their time in finding seats. And all the while, Dr. Fowler complacently surveyed his captive audience, his rimless glasses flashing occasionally as he glanced from side to side. I eased my head to one side to look beyond Harriet’s shoulder, taking in as much of Dr. Fowler as I could while he was gazing in another direction.

Lord, how could I have ever seen anything in him? Well, of course I’d not
seen
anything, having kept my eyes closed through the whole episode. But there he sat in a brown suit, yellow shirt and striped tie, one leg crossed over the other, exposing a sliver of white shin between pant leg’s end and the top of a brown silk sock with a yellow clock up the side. His red hair had lost some luster and thickness in the intervening years, although it had had little of either to begin with. He’d shrunk with age somewhat as well, though he’d barely been my height before, and I wondered how old he was. Seventy-five if he was a day was my guess, and going around the country advising married couples on how to stoke embers. Most unseemly, I sniffed, and quickly jerked back behind Harriet as his gaze swept the room.

At that point, I noticed the two stacks of thin paperback books on a table beside his chair. Thinking at first that he might hand them out to his audience, I was aghast to see three women go to him, pick up books and hand him money. He was selling them! Of all the inappropriate things to do in a private home, this took the cake.

“Look, Emma Sue,” I hissed as I elbowed her, “he’s selling those books. Does Mildred know that?”

“Larry told her he had to,” she said. “He’s self-published, you know, and it’s one of the ways he makes his living.”

“Well, I think it’s a tacky thing to do.”

“I guess,” Emma Sue said, “but I want one. Somebody said they’re workbooks. You know, homework for married couples, and they have illustrations, too.” She leaned close to me and whispered. “You get one for me, Julia, and I’ll pay you back later. It wouldn’t do for people to see me buying one.”

“Emma Sue! I will not! You can get it yourself if you want one. But I don’t know why you would. Illustrations? You know what they’ll be, don’t you?”

“No. That’s why I want one.”

My eyes rolled back in my head just as Mildred walked to the center of the room and introduced Dr. Fred Fowler, who would speak to us about the joys of a Christ-centered marriage.

As Mildred moved to the side, Dr. Fowler straightened up in his chair, cleared his throat and cast a small knowing smile on his audience. I scrooched farther down behind Harriet Malone, gritted my teeth and wished I were anywhere but where I was.

Dr. Fowler started off by telling us that marriage is a sacred covenant designed by God to demonstrate the relationship of Christ and his church. Nothing new there, I thought.

He went on speaking in a soft and persuasive tone so that the sound of his voice curled around us as we all quieted and strained to hear—a psychological trick, I thought to myself, to keep our attention.

He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Art thou bound to a husband? Then you must render unto your husband his due, for the marriage bed is undefiled. Seek not to be loosed, for a wife must not depart from her husband.”

He sat back and smiled as if he’d proclaimed a precept we’d never heard of. Unfortunately for him, most of us had. Shocked at how he’d paraphrased and conflated Scripture, I glanced at Emma Sue, who knew her Bible backward and forward. She was staring at him, her mouth open, a look of amazement on her face. Then she bent to her legal pad and began scribbling as fast as she could.

Without looking up, she whispered, “Write, Julia. Get it all down.”

I glanced at her notes, then tried to catch up by jotting down what I remembered. But by that time, Dr. Fowler was rattling on with a full head of steam, and I’d missed how he’d gotten there.

“Has your marriage grown stale?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer. “Are the fires dying down? Do you wonder where the passion has gone? Have you ever asked yourself, ‘Is this all there is?’ Has your coming together become a growing apart? Then,” Dr. Fowler said, his voice gaining strength as he rose to his feet, “
then,
you are in the grip of one or more of the insidious marriage busters. And what is a marriage buster? It’s anything done, or
not
done, to hurt your spouse.”

He sighed dramatically, then resumed in his quiet voice. “I could list twelve of them, but we’re limited in our time together, so I’m only going to speak of one, the worst one. And that is refusing your husband the comfort of the marriage bed, or, just about as bad, enduring rather than participating in that comfort. Do you push him away? Are you too tired or too sick? Do you roll your eyes? Make a cutting remark that lessens and deflates him? Your unwilling or lackadaisical response to his needs will bust up a marriage quicker than anything.”

Emma Sue leaned close and whispered, “Is he talking about what I think he’s talking about?”

I nodded, my mouth stretched so thin and tight I couldn’t get a word out.

“There is no other blessing under the sun,” Dr. Fowler declaimed, “more to be desired and honored and
practiced
than that of the physical coming together of a man and wife. It is the physical and spiritual communion of two entities. Now I’m going to give you a news flash: men are different from women.” He stopped then and smiled, awaiting the ripple of laughter that a few granted him. “Men are different in their needs and in the frequency that those needs demand to be met. It is the wise wife who recognizes this and who makes herself available at all times and in all ways. But she should not only be available, she should be
enthusiastically
available. And not only enthusiastically available, but—hear me now, for this is one of the secrets to a happy marriage—she should often be the initiator and the instigator of those actions that will stimulate and arouse her husband to a release of those tensions and built-up resentments that are part and parcel of any marriage.”

There was dead quiet in the room as we absorbed and parsed his words. Emma Sue was taking notes as fast as she could, mumbling under her breath, “Wait till Larry hears this.”

I couldn’t respond, but it struck me that Larry just might agree with Dr. Fowler.

The good doctor took up his cause again. “My dear sisters, I know that you may be shocked, you may think it’s too much to ask and you may wonder if I know what I’m talking about. But I assure you I do. Study after study has shown that when a married couple makes every effort to conjoin
daily
in that sacred act of coitus, their marriage is strengthened beyond anything the world can do to destroy it.”

There was a loud gasp from every mouth in the room. I couldn’t tell if it was caused by hearing that unusual word in a public and mixed gathering or by the prospect of a daily ration of it. I was outraged at the thought of both or either one. Recalling an article I’d read of a preacher whose mind was so filled with images of marital congress that he displayed a double bed beside the altar as a show-and-tell item, I wondered if both the preaching and the psychological professions hadn’t taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Dr. Fowler waited until the effect of his words had run its course, then he said, “When you get home tonight, take a look at your vitamin bottle. You’ll see the initials RDA, the recommended daily allowance. That’s my prescription for you, too, and if you follow the RDA of marital intercourse, believe me, you will begin to see the sparks fly and your marriage will be immeasurably strengthened.” Dr. Fowler allowed himself a smile at his own cleverness as his gaze swept the room. I ducked lower over my pad.

“Now,” he went on, holding up a warning finger, “a word of caution. I’ve emphasized how important it is to keep your husbands satisfied and content, but you women are in just as much danger if you allow yourselves to become closed off and antagonistic to married lovemaking. You will set yourselves up to become prey to the natural instinct to couple with the opposite sex and therefore become self-made victims of uncontrollable desires that can spring up in the most unsuitable places and with the most innocent of men. It is up to you to constrain and restrain the animal instincts we all possess in both your husbands and in yourselves. I could give you example after example of cases in which a woman has taken leave of her senses simply because, for one reason or another and sometimes through her own fault, she has been denied a suitable outlet. The loss of self-control in a man is bad enough, although often understandable, but when a woman loses control of her emotions, it is a sad and pitiable thing to witness.”

I thought I’d faint dead away. Did he intend to give a
specifi c
example? Was he talking about me? I bowed my head and patted my chest, dread filling my mind to the extent that I feared I’d melt in mortification.

Then, in the midst of the shame that filled my soul, it came to me that he’d referred to many examples. Did that mean he’d been accosted by other women? Had there been others whom he’d led down the primrose path? It was beginning to sound as if Dr. Fred Fowler was an itinerant psychological seducer, and I hoped Emma Sue was getting it all down.

I groaned softly and whispered to Emma Sue, “I’m feeling sick to my stomach.”

“Me, too,” she murmured, her pen flying over the pad.

“Now,” Dr. Fowler said, “Mrs. Allen, our gracious hostess, has prepared refreshments for us, so let’s take a short break. Afterward, I will give you, well, let us say, some kindling to restart the fires of your marriage. There are some very simple and easy-to-learn techniques that I guarantee will stoke the smoldering embers of your marriages into blazing flames.”

He turned aside, and the noise level began to rise. Chair legs scraped against the floor and people bustled, talking to one another as they prepared to adjourn to the dining room.

Then Dr. Fowler, with Mildred’s help, regained our attention. “Please feel free,” Dr. Fowler said, “to come up and purchase one of my books. They’re only fourteen dollars and ninety-five cents each, and they’re handy reference guides. One stack is specifically for women, and the other is for men. You would be wise to purchase one for your husband, as well as yourself. That way you’ll both be on the same page.” He laughed at his poor joke, and some simpleminded adorers joined him.

I sat still as others around Emma Sue and me stood, preparing to partake of Mildred’s offerings. Emma Sue was still writing, her head bent over her pad, while I looked around for a way to get out of the crush without being seen. We were crammed in so close that Emma Sue’s knees were right up against the chair in front, blocking that path. Harriet Malone was making no effort to get up, so I couldn’t stand until she did. And unhappily, I heard Harriet ask someone to bring her a plate because she thought she’d stay where she was.

I didn’t know what to do, for this was the best time to beat a hasty retreat. If I waited until everyone was leaving, Dr. Fowler would most likely be standing at the front door to wish us a good night. Fearing with all my heart a face-to-face meeting, I determined to get myself out of there while the getting was good.

“Emma Sue,” I whispered, nudging her, “let’s go.”

“It’s not over, Julia. And I’m staying till it is. I’m writing as hard as I can, but you’re making me forget half of what he said.” She bent over her pad again and stayed right where she was.

I did the only thing I could think to do. I slid down in my chair and dropped to my knees on Mildred’s oriental rug. Then, turning sideways, I began to crawl over Emma Sue’s feet. The folding chairs had been placed so closely together with hardly any room between the rows that I had to squeeze past a chair on one side and Emma Sue’s skinny shins on the other.